By Laurie M. Wasserman, Esq. and Virginia Yeoman, Esq.

An electronic Newsletter, or “eNewsletter,” is a powerful tool for marketing your law practice. Regardless of your practice’s size, an eNewsletter is an inexpensive way to reach a wide audience. With some time and creativity, you can create a recurring method to promote your work, reach your contacts, and keep you as their “top of mind” lawyer. Here’s why your law practice needs a eNewsletter:

1. eNewsletters establish trust and knowledge. An eNewsletter shows your audience that you are trustworthy and knowledgeable in your areas of practice. By providing relevant information to your readers, you are reminding them of what you do and ways you can help them. If you are not sure what to write, consider topics such as a CLE you recently attended, a client success story (make it so the client cannot be identified), or share a new appellate opinion in your practice area. I often find topics for my eNewsletter based on the questions new clients often ask or an interesting issue that happened at a recent trial. There are plenty of topics to interest your audience and demonstrate that you are up to date on your area of practice.
2. eNewsletters target your ideal audience. You should consider who your target audience is for your eNewsletter. Your audience could be current or former clients, referral sources, or colleagues. Once you decide who is getting the eNewsletter, you can determine if everyone should get the same version, or if you will need to prepare different versions for different audiences. While the latter may be more work, the benefits of directing content to a specific audience could be worth the time invested.
3. eNewsletters allow you to track ROI. Oftentimes, lawyers will market without measuring the return on our investment. For an eNewsletter, there are programs (like Mailchimp) that measure how many people opened the eNewsletter, clicked the links in the eNewseletter, or unsubscribed. With this data, you can track what types of content get the most interest. It also allows you to see if any of your referral sources or clients are reading what you send them.

Tips to Starting an eNewsletter

Now that you know the reasons to have a eNewsletter, you may wonder what goes into creating one.

• The hardest part of this process is deciding what you want your template to look like.
• There are websites that can create a eNewsletter template for you for a nominal price.
• If you are willing to invest a little more money, you can hire a marketing firm to create your template and even write your content.
• Once you have a template for your eNewsletter, you can quickly and easily recreate the eNewsletters to send out on a recurring basis. The frequency of distribution is up to you, but it is important to be consistent.
• The content of your eNewsletter is extremely important. At a minimum, your eNewsletter should have:
  • your firm name, a greeting of some sort,
  • a “teaser” of what information is in the eNewsletter (and an option to click on an article for more information),
  • photos,
  • a link to your website, and
  • your contact information.
  • Also, don’t be afraid to add some humor (everyone loves a good lawyer joke) or a recipe. Make your eNewsletter something that people enjoy reading.

With these tips in mind, we look forward to receiving many new eNewsletters our inbox soon. If you have any questions about eNewsletters, we invite you to contact us at laurie@wassermanlawoffice.com or virginia@wassermanlawoffice.com.

Editor’s Note: To see the authors’ eNewsletter, you can subscribe to it HERE.

Laurie M. Wasserman is the principal of Wasserman Family Law LLC in Baltimore County, Md. Laurie is a Fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Virginia Yeoman is with Wasserman Family Law LLC in Baltimore County, Md. Virginia focuses on divorce, custody, child support, protective orders, and contempt matters. Virginia is also a certified mediator.